faith

He will restore the years……

December 16, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 20 Comments

Those of you who are new to my blog can read about my son Taylor here and watch a video of a wonderful song he wrote based on Psalm 42 here. You can learn more about Caiti here. I write about the little girls all the time…..they’re home alot more than the teenagers. So today: a little spotlight on the teens. Taylor is 18 and Caiti is 16 and they have been such a blessing and joy to me through the years. Taylor graduates this year so every event has become a quasi-emotional breakdown fest. “This is the last time he’ll” fill-in-the-blank……at least while he lives at my house. These two are like the quintessential siblings. They do almost everything together and truly do love each other and when Caiti gets her feathers ruffled (every morning when Taylor is running late for school) she nags and scolds him like a worn out housewife. I’ve always said he’ll make the perfect husband and father (having had 3 sisters) or else he’ll convert to Catholicism and join the monastery. One things’ for sure, he knows high maintenance women inside and out. I can hardly believe that these two are grown up. It seems just yesterday I was taking this picture.
and walking on the beach with this little sweetie……
and buying batman paraphernalia for this one……
Where do the years go? And through all the teaching and nagging do they know beyond a shadow of doubt how much they are loved? Do they realize how many times I’ve cried out to God in desperation…….wishing that there was some way to take any heartache or sadness away? Alas. These moments of honest reflection are often swept away by, “Why do you keep leaving wet towels on the floor?” and “If you don’t clean your room, I’m gonna take your cell phone away”. But sometimes in the quiet of the morning, when I reminisce about those years gone by…….I thank God for so much joy. And I thank Him for the heartache too. Because He has a way of turning sorrow to joy. He alone will restore the years the locusts have eaten.
So when I see my children dressed like this and singing ancient songs in latin……..
and when I see them all dressed up and enjoying their life and their friends…..
I can’t help but be filled with joy…….that for a season……for a short time……….
they were in my trust. I pray that where I have woefully fallen short, the Lord will fill in the gaps.
and they will find their way…….and use their gifts…….to His glory.
Enjoy this short video of the chamber choir singing. Taylor and Caiti both were selected for this audition choir at their high-school for the last few years. And you’ll easily be able to find Taylor. He’s the one that can’t seem to sing without a lot of swaying. He drives his choir teacher crazy ….but I think it’s kind of adorable.

And say this prayer this morning for your own children: taken from the Lutheran prayer book:

With joy and thanksgiving we praise You out of the fullness of our grateful hearts that You have gladdened our home and life with this child. We know that this child is a gift of your bountiful hand. Grant us grace and wisdom to bring up this precious soul in the knowledge and understanding of Your word. Watch over them with your tenderest care and continued grace.

As surely as You will endow them with faith and strengthen them in spirit, so too we pray too that You will endow them with a healthy body and strengthen and preserve them according to Your good and gracious will. Grant that they may grow in favor with You and bring sunshine and joy into our hearts and homes. Keep us all in Your grace, forgiving us daily our sins and filling our souls with peace. You are our hiding place. And now to You be praise, glory and thanksgiving, for this precious gift, this day and forever, through Jesus Christ, who is the Friend of children and Savior of all. Amen.

Why I Can’t Stop Reading Good Books……..

November 30, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 13 Comments

“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become. In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.”
~C.S. Lewis

After nearly two weeks of planning and baking and decorating and cooking, Thanksgiving seemed to blow in and out like a summer storm. It was wonderful and ever so brief. Lingering around the table with coffee and dessert never lasts long enough for me. The rest of the weekend, I spent playing board/card games and reading. My weekend reads consisted of a few exceptional blog archives from Conversion Diary (and some of her links) and the book Uncharted by Angela Hunt, along with some excellent Advent readings. My mind is still reeling. I approached this book with a healthy degree of skepticism when I read this on the back cover:

“…A blend of the movies Castaway and The Big Chill, with a touch of the television series Lost, creatively thrown together with the biblical story of the beggar Lazarus and C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce.”

I’m a huge fan of (have a serious literary crush on) C.S. Lewis….so when his name gets tossed around, I get defensive. I’ve read all but 3 of his books and most of them several times…..Mere Christianity maybe 6 or 7…..and he is in my estimation the most gifted christian writer of the 20th century….hands down. Steve and I plan to fight over who gets to have coffee with him first in heaven. The Great Divorce happens to be my 2nd favorite of his books. So I read….but with some skepticism.

I read the book in less than 2 days. It was compelling enough to keep me reading. I had to force myself to put it down…..to shower and such. I will give none of the plot away, but I will say that it is a book that will change me….that will change the way I think about the world…..that will cause me to ‘transcend myself’ and for that I am always grateful. It does not approach the genius of The Great Divorce but I can understand and appreciate the comparison. This book and the unrelated blog posts that I read this weekend have certainly ‘irrigated the deserts of my life’ and left me with the following observations that I want to share with you:

1. We often look/long for something to satisfy our souls that is unattainable. If we just had the right job/spouse/church /children/home/car/job/circumstances/camera….. then life would be what we have always hoped for. The perfect sublime will of God is right before our eyes and we miss it. Everyday. We long to do something important….. something that matters. His will…..his perfect will is exactly where you are….with exactly the people you are surrounded by….doing exactly your vocation….to the best of your ability and to the glory of God. Even if that means doing what I’m doing….playing a memory game with my girls while I fold a load of laundry and wonder aloud how this ghastly amount of dust by my fireplace escaped my swipe before Thanksgiving. The every-day, mundane, mind-numbing tasks of daily life were hardly the place I’d look to try to find this ethereal ideal of the will of God. But that’s His design of vocation. Help me to see where the mundane touches the divine, Lord and help me to ‘serve my neighbor’ (often my children) as I perform the tasks that my vocation requires.

2. We long to find a little time/space to ourselves. We hurry through our ‘chores’ and perhaps through the kids’ nighttime routine in hopes that we can secure a little something for ourselves…maybe a corner of our hearts where noone can invade. …or at least an hour on the computer….where the pull of impatient hands will not be felt. We hurry through a game of Sorry with the little ones to get to some ‘quiet’ time where we would surely suppress rage if they invade…..for another drink of water or another kiss goodnight. God says that I belong wholly to Him. All of my time is His. All of my heart is His. He entrusts me to be a good steward of this precious time He gives me to shepherd and nurture these little lives. Help me to not hurry them Lord. Help me to answer their questions with understanding. Give me wisdom to see that their ‘interruptions’ are Your divine will….that every circumstance that presents itself in my life……is a chance to serve You and teach them. And though I will certainly give thanks when the peaceful moments come, I will not seek those moments at the expense of my childrens’ discipleship.

3. Despite everything within our sinful nature that would like to take credit for any ‘good’ found in ourselves, we are in absolute and abject poverty without the grace of God at work in our lives. I cannot even take credit for the fact that I am a christian. It’s all His work. It is He that rescues and saves and redeems and loves. All good gifts come from Him and in Him we ‘live and move and have our being’. Why then do I find myself judging others and feeling ‘glad ‘I’m not like those people’? Lord, remind me of the complete and utter despair that exists outside You. Remind me that the very thing I could never earn…..You have freely given. Remind us of Luther’s words that, ‘We are beggars, all.’

4. This was a weekend of reaffirming why it is that I decided to homeschool. This online article articulates what I’ve often wanted to tell those who are curious whether or not my children will turn out to be social misfits with little to no impact on their culture for Christ. I am more motivated than ever to create a culture in our home of learning and faith and serving my family. When I was an active volunteer at my childrens’ school in the past, I felt a certain ‘pouring out of myself’ to the multitudes with little to nothing left at times to ‘pour out’ on those I am called to serve the most……my own family. Sally Thomas said it marvelously:

“The challenge for homeschoolers, then, is not to embrace a kind of spiritual Marxism, in which a limited amount of parental nurture and Christian witness is redistributed, in diluted form, to the masses—or to feel guilty if they don’t—but rather to bear persistent witness to the worth of children, the rewards of family life, and the hope that lies in nurturing culture on a small but potent scale, soul by soul by soul.”

It has been a much needed ‘filling up’ of my tank and this rich reading….along with the Advent readings will take me a while to process.

And that’s why I can’t stop reading good books…and good blogs!

I’ve missed you this week girls!

Nourishing Words……

November 20, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 11 Comments

“I am so glad that you have come. I will pour out everything inside me so you may leave this table satisfied and fortified. Blessings on your eyes. Blessings on your children. Blessings on the ground beneath you. My heart is a ladle of sweet water, brimming over.”
Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

This is one of my favorite quotes……..from one of my favorite all-time books, The Red Tent. The book is work a of fiction about the life of Dinah…..the only daughter of Jacob. (taken from the account in Genesis). It’s a fantastic book and I highly recommend it. I have this quote printed on pretty paper and framed and sitting on my kitchen counter, right beside where I cook. It helps me…..when I’m tired or stressed and trying to make food…..to remember how I feel about those who sit at my table everyday. It reminds me to not just go through the motions of cooking…..but to do it with joy and gladness so that I can truly ‘serve’ those I love……literally nurturing and sustaining them. And you know what? It makes the food taste better. I’m sure of it. Isn’t our attitude about things powerful like that?

I was listening to this yesterday on my favorite radio show, Issues Etc., and it helped me to see….for the first time ever…..that a wife really is a picture of the bride of Christ…..the Church. She is the means by which God gives birth to its members through the regeneration of baptism and the means by which He sustains and nourishes its members through the very body and blood of Christ at the Lord’s Supper. So my vocation of wife and mother is not trivial. And my uniqueness as the life-giving, life-sustaining source in this family is so important to God….. so important…..that he compared it to His Church….whom He loved enough to give His very life for.

Isn’t that what we as women have the freedom and privilege to do…..to “pour out everything inside us”? I feel a little like that about blogging. We share ourselves and our hearts with each other…..to nourish and sustain ourselves and those we love. Your blogs and your words are like that for me…..”sweet water, brimming over”. So, read the quote again……and be blessed today.

And cook that meatloaf with love, baby!

The heart is deceitful above all things……..

November 15, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 13 Comments

I read a recent post by Denise and it made me think. It was about evil and taking a stand against it and not being ashamed. Her and I must both be in the same funk. Ya know, the one I’ve been in since I quit working. It has given me lots of time to ponder many things in my life. There’s nowhere to hide anymore for me. My regrets, my heartache, my sin…..is ever before me….with no life-shattering emergency to push it back down to dark recesses of my heart. Where I have safely kept many issues through the years. They’re right beneath the surface now. And sometimes it’s hard to pretend they aren’t there. So I deal with them, slowly
and thoughtfully….and sometimes painfully. And grieve. And cry. And repent.
I do think about evil. But since I became Lutheran, I think about it in a totally different way. Some evils seem easier to pick out than others. Terrorism, starving people, satanism, child abuse, abortion…..those seem easy to call evil. We like things nicely divided in our minds. It makes it easy to toss them in the ‘evil’ basket……and to judge those who are propagating the ‘evil’. And God does hate evil. For sure. But can we always be sure where it lurks? Do we have the black line so definitely drawn around it that we miss some of the most vile and bitter evil of all? Paul said it this way, “Even when I would do good, I find an evil that is present in me”. So do I…….I have become more aware of my own evil and sinfulness over the past two years than I’d care to share. And it makes me uncomfortable. If I am totally honest with myself and God, there is evil present in everything I do. I hope someone notices when I bake bread for my ailing neighbor….I relish in nice things people say about my home….I try to push down ill feelings that rise up in me about a friend…..I envy, I lie, I covet, I lust. Remember when Jesus said that if you have anger in your heart toward your neighbor, you are guilty of murder. When the definition is sin is extended to that degree, I have nowhere to hide. I am riddled with sin. Every moment. Every thought. Even my best moments and thoughts. And so are you, if you’re honest. My brokenness paralyzes me sometimes. So, how do I process the guilt and the grief that overtake me? I cry out. To God. Who said to me, “and you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled you in his body by His death, in order to present you blameless and irreproachable before Him…”. He has covered my evil….by His blood….a redemption and atonement of the most epic nature. But until the day that this mortal body is redeemed, I will live in a paradoxical tension….of both saint and sinner. Of having my sin forgiven under the blood and cross of Christ…..and then waking up another day to live in this blessed but debased human flesh. Which ‘only thinks of evil all the time”. So lately when I ponder evil, I don’t get much past my own depravity. And that….makes me evermore grateful that He has come to rescue me from myself…. from my sin. from my brokenness. I leave you with this song by Lifehouse called “Broken”. Sometimes a song can say it all.

Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean and have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. For the sake of Your son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways……Almighty God in His mercy has given His son to die for you and for His sake forgives you all your sins.”

Surprised by joy…….

November 7, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 8 Comments

“If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, we should also begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world.” C. S. Lewis

Do you ever have days or moments where you feel like all is right in the world? Those moments are wonderful and fleeting. Or when the longing for something turned out to not quite satisfy like you thought it would? That longing or desire is God-given. And will never be fully realized in this world. That said, let me show you a few sights that come close.

…snuggling with Grandma….

…watching your daughter add the “mom” leaf to the “What we’re Thankful for” tree…..

…spying on your children as they stage a puppet show with Grandma…….

…dipping pretzels in white chocolate……

…sneaking a few (handfuls) of these pepper nuts that Grandma made….

…..admiring your newly painted and decoupaged bookshelf…..

and newly made sign….

….and feeling almost giddy about this most beautiful butter crock that Grandma had specially made in Minnesota…. you can store your butter in the cupboard (next to the bacon grease) so that it’s always soft when you need it….and I need it…a LOT.

…..scarfing down a mighty large piece of pumpkin creme pie with oreo crust…..my very own creation. It was delish. I used a coconut cream pie recipe…left out the coconut and added pumpkin….I know, brilliant. I should have my own show…….

We get glimpses here of sheer joy…..but they leave us, and for some…..seldom even come. For my children, those moments often come when Grandma and Grandpa are visiting. Mine seem to be fleeting moments in time that I can seldom foresee and never produce on demand……the way my son smiles, Elea falling asleep in my arms, my daughter answering her phone in her best country voice saying “Huva Got”, my husband tucking my girls to bed….and making sure the cover is just right. Those are the moments that we can’t hold on to, that often overcome our emotions and reason…..and leave us wanting more. Those, my friends, are glimpses of heaven, or Eden, for which we were made, and to which we will return.

Song 42

November 3, 2008 by Edie Wadsworth 15 Comments

My son wrote a song called Song 42 based on scripture taken from Psalm 42—tricky, huh? The song is beautiful and after I listened to the song 442 times, I went and read Psalm 42…..and began to weep. Like a baby. I’ve read Psalm 42 many times before and have always loved it. But it’s different when you see how your children might translate that word into a song. I think the girls and I (the little ones that I homeschool) will have to add this psalm to our list of ones to memorize. I’ll never read it the same again. Every time I read those precious words I will hear my son’s voice in my head singing this:

I will say a prayer to the God who gives me life

I will say to God my rock, Lord I love you

And I am thirsty, thirsty for the living God

Where can I meet Him?

Tears have been my food day and night

I long to serve him

Where can I meet Him?

During the day the Lord sends his love to me

During the night I wil sing songs about Him

I will say a prayer to the God who gives me life

I will say to God my rock , Lord I love you

When the world comes down on me

and questions “Where is your God?”

I will say, He lives inside of me

During the day the Lord sends His love to me

During the night I will sing songs about Him

I will say a prayer to the God who gives me life

I will say to God my rock, Lord I love you

Lord I love you

Lord I love you.

Now for a double blessing, read Psalm 42.